BACKGROUND

In patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, the presence of peripheral blood cytopaenia may represent an obstacle to pegylated interferon and ribavirin treatment.

AIMS

To evaluate the prevalence of anaemia, neutropaenia and thrombocytopaenia potentially limiting initiation of pegylated interferon and ribavirin treatment in patients with chronic HCV infection who were otherwise eligible for antiviral therapy.

METHODS

We studied 3059 consecutive anti-HCV and HCV-RNA positive patients referred to our centre to be evaluated for antiviral therapy from June 2002 to May 2011. The European Association for the Study of Liver HCV guidelines were applied to assess eligibility for antiviral therapy.

RESULTS

In the study cohort, 1,521 patients (49.7%) were not eligible for treatment because of reasons different from haematological abnormalities. In the remaining 1,538 patients the overall prevalence of any peripheral blood cytopaenia potentially preventing patients from being treated with antiviral therapy was 15.1%. In particular, anaemia (haemoglobin level < 12 g/dL for women, <13 g/dL for men) was a relative contraindication to treatment in 8.9% (137/1,538) of the patients, while thrombocytopaenia (platelet count cut-off, 90 × 10(9) /L) and neutropaenia (absolute neutrophil count < 1.5 × 10(9) /L) limited treatment in 6.5% (100/1358) and 3.2% (48/1358) of patients respectively. These haematological abnormalities were more prevalent in patients with older age (P < 0.004) and cirrhosis (P < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

The presence of peripheral blood cytopaenia may potentially limit initiation of antiviral therapy in one in every seven patients with chronic HCV infection who are otherwise eligible for treatment.